Final Thoughts
Final Thoughts
Written by John Packard
August 21, 2015
We are now one week away from our 5th Steel Summit Conference. As I have mentioned before, we will set a new record for attendance this year, potentially breaking last year’s record by 80 to 100 people. Our Steel Summit Conference continues to get accolades from those in the industry for the quality of our program, the ease of the location and the fact that we attract real steel people making for great networking for all that attend.
Don’t get me wrong, we can still squeeze a few more people into the room. You can register online or feel free to contact my office: 800-432-3475.
We will have all of our instructors for our various workshops at this year’s conference. John Eckstein, Peter Wright, Steve Painter and Mario Longhi (along with myself) who handle our Steel 101: Introduction to Steel Making & Market Fundamentals workshop (next one will be October 6-7 in Davenport, Iowa and will include a tour of the SSAB steel mill). We also have Andre Marshall who (along with myself) is the instructor for our Managing Price Risk workshops. Our next Managing Price Risk II workshop will be held in New York City on November 11-12th. Details and registration are on our website.
Mario Briccetti and Sandy Simon who work with me on our new Sales Training Workshop (which, up to now, have been custom programs for those in the distribution industry – stainless and flat rolled). You can learn more about our Sales Training program and how we might fit with your company. We are considering taking this workshop out to the public and seeing if companies have an interest in sending one or two people vs. us conducting a total company workshop. If you (or your company) are interested please speak with Mario during the conference.
I have also mentioned that we will be conducting a Leadership Summit conference on March 8-9, 2016 at the PGA National Resort & Spa in Palm Beach Gardens. This facility will host the Honda Golf Classic the week prior to our arrival. This conference will be different than anything we (and probably any other steel related publication/event company) have done before. First, registration will be restricted to as few as 50 executives. Second, we will “deep dive” into fewer subjects that we feel are important for manufacturing companies, distributors and trading companies. Ray Culley (former head of Marketing for Severstal NA) is working with me on developing a special program. We will have more to say about this during the Steel Summit Conference.
We will have a much better exhibition area at this year’s conference than we ever had before. Our Conference Partner, Pacesetter Steel Service, Inc. will be there as will the Institute for Trend Research (ITR), Fabricators & Manufacturers Association (FMA), Association of Steel Distributors (ASD) and we will have a table set up on Day 2 for those who would like to get a copy of Dan DiMicco’s book American Made: Why Making Things Will Return Us to Greatness. Steel Market Update will have two tables: one will be for our Events which I listed above and the second will be for our newsletter, website and a help desk for those wanting to download or learn more about using the SMU Events App.
Putting on a conference of this size is quite a feat. For those of you who don’t know we only have a few full time employees and then we have a number of dedicated people who have helped us tremendously over the past 10 months. That’s right, we have been working on this conference for 10 months to get to the point where we are now. At the same time we have produced 99 Executive level newsletters and about 30-40 Premium level supplemental newsletters. Plus we conduct our surveys twice per month. Not to mention our workshops and speaking engagements…
The next 10 days will be crazy ones for our team. I want to thank each of them now before we are buried with all of the final tasks needed to conduct this show: Brett Linton (who will be behind the desk helping you to learn more about our website, App and newsletters), Sandy Williams (who will be covering all of the speakers), Diana Packard (registration, payments and coordinating speakers), Peter Wright (moderator/speaker/writer), Mario Briccetti (in the Events booth and backing up Ray Culley), John Eckstein (in the Events booth & helping with microphones), Steve Painter (in the Events booth & helping with microphones), Sandy Simon (in the Events booth & backup as needed), Andre Marshall (in the Events booth) and special thanks to Ray Culley who has taken a lot of work off my shoulders as we expand not only this conference but our workshops and new conferences to come.
This past week was extremely stressful as we were behind in getting our program and some other files over to the printer. We could not have done it without the help of our website designer (and SMU friend) K-3 Technologies.
Our conference is not the only thing happening the first week of September. The union contracts expire at midnight on September 1st and we will find out if there is enough reason for both sides to work without a contract for awhile or has the line been drawn in the sand…?
Take a deep breath as the next week or two are sure to be interesting ones for the steel industry and for those of us at SMU.
As always your business is truly appreciated by all of us here at Steel Market Update.
John Packard, Publisher
John Packard
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Final thoughts
SMU had the pleasure of attending the American Iron and Steel Institute's (AISI's) annual general meeting in Washington this week. It was a slow week in our nation's capital, so we were able to take a leisurely stroll around the National Mall and take in the sights. Just kidding. In fact, the meeting coincided with significant trade actions announced by the Biden administration. It included, among other things, additional tariffs on Chinese steel and aluminum.
Final thoughts
Our spot price is little changed this week after moving sharply lower last week on the heels of Nucor’s unexpected price cut. Here’s one thought on that trend: Nucor's weekly HR price (aka, its “Consumer Spot Price” or CSP) has to date functioned almost more like a monthly price.
Final thoughts
What's the tea in the steel industry this week? Here's the latest SMU gossip column! Just kidding... kind of. Yes, some of the comments we receive in our weekly flat-rolled market steel buyers' survey are honestly too much to put into print. Some make us laugh. Some make us cringe. Some are cryptic. Most are serious. We appreciate them all. Below are some highlights from our survey results this week. Some of the comments that we can share with you are also included, in italics, in the buyers' own words, with minimal editing on our part.
Final thoughts
Last week we wrote about a brief lull in price movement, labeling it a period of wait and see. It did, in fact, turn out to be pretty brief. This week... things are little bit different. Perhaps right now we are more in a period of "hope and pray" or "Here we go, hold on to your hats."
Final thoughts
Unless you've been under a rock, you know by know that Nucor's published HR price for this week is $760 per short ton, down $65/st from the company’s $825/st a week ago. I could use more colorful words. But I think it’s safe to say that most of the market was not expecting this. For starters, US sheet mills never announce price decreases. (OK, not never. It has come to my attention that Severstal North America rescinded a price increase back on Feb. 14, 2012. And it caused quite the ruckus.)